"Our Struggle is for all Life": The Theosophist/Unitarian Feminist Pioneer Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898 CE).(Biography)

GAGE'S IMPORTANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

Matilda Joslyn Gage was perhaps the most original and radical activist and theoretician to lead the nineteenth century American women's movement. Yet she herself has been largely forgotten, even in the field of women's history, which she fearlessly pioneered. Because of her bold criticisms of male domination in organized religion, especially Christianity, her legacy was suppressed--even by other feminists. Whether or not, or to what extent, one might share Gage's religious beliefs, even a brief look at her life and work shows how much she needs to be remembered, as she remembered so many forgotten women leaders before her.

Unlike most girls of her time, the young Matilda was given an intellectually challenging education at home. She often remarked that "the grandest training given her was to think for herself "(1) The family's home in Upstate New York was a gathering place for religious and political radicals and a station on the Underground Railroad. This family environment encouraged her to develop her many gifts and awakened a sense of social responsibility in her. Gage aspired to become a doctor but was barred from medical school on the grounds of her sex. She found other ways to be a healer. She established herself as an impressive activist/scholar, even as she married, bore and raised four children, and struggled with recurrent ill health.

Gage was involved in the women's movement from 1852 until her death, often bolstering her case for women's rights with forgotten or suppressed material she had painstakingly gleaned from archives and libraries. She was an organizer and officer of the National Woman Suffrage Association and edited its newspaper, The National Citizen and Ballot Box. She co-authored, with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage.

Even in these endeavours, her attention was not devoted solely to winning women the vote. Her tireless research showed her that men had for thousands of years systematically robbed women of much else besides their natural right of enfranchisement. She could not remain silent about any form of male theft from women, or any other form of domination. For example, as editor of the NWSA newspaper, she spoke out plainly against men's sexual victimization of prostitutes and the court system's lack of commitment to punishing rapists rather than their victims. She defended the rights of Native Americans so strongly that an Iroquois Nation made her an honorary member and gave her the name "Sky Carrier." During a feminist action to protest the 1886 unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, Gage announced: "All the struggles for freedom are connected." She spoke out in favor of the labor movement, the peace movement, and the Irish independence struggle. She removed a bird-trimmed hat--a fashion of the day---from her head and t hrew it away. "The survival of animals, too is our cause....Fashion must not be bought at the expense of life.... Our struggle is for all life. Liberty is the key to maintaining it." (2)

Gage's long, brave career culminated in her 1893 volume Woman, Church and State, a critique of misogyny committed in the name of the Christian religion. The book was even more radical than another project to which Gage had contributed, the controversial Woman's Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Though little read today, Woman, Church and State anticipates many concerns and positions of the late twentieth-century women's spirituality movement. For example, a century before the work of Marija Gimbutas and Riane Eisler, Gage postulated the existence of the "Matriarchate," an ancient "golden age" in which "the femininity of the divine, and the divinity of the feminine" were both honored. The contemporary feminist thealogian Mary Daly has lavished praise upon Gage and sees in her erasure from history a warning of what must not happen again:

For some it has been ...shocking to come upon the work of Gage, and to read this very perceptive and learned woman's study. It is infuriating to discover that this foresister, and others like her, had already gathered and analyzed materials which feminist scholars are just beginning to unearth again....Such a painful discovery raises enraging questions: How could we-especially women historians, educated and legitimated by "degrees"--have been kept in such ignorance of our own tradition? And when women overcome this studied ignorance to some degree and publish our own works will these be as effectively concealed from our "educated" sisters of the future as the work of our foresisters has been hidden from us? One of the basic premises of Hag-ographers must be a promise to carry on the prcocess, to create in such a way that our creativity cannot be silenced....There is much to be done. Working with increased confidence and precision, Hags must continue in the spiritual tradition of such visionaries as Matilda Jo slyn Gage, continuing to uncover our past and paths to our future.(3)